


Reasonland

by Moonlark



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3187094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlark/pseuds/Moonlark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Who would want to do this to you?” Kun asks, pacing back and forth, shoes squeaking quietly on the tiled floor. </p><p>“I don’t know,” Lio says, frowning at the elegant grain, slightly stain-splattered, that is his kitchen table. “It’s a scandal. People like scandals.”</p><p>(or, someone tries to frame Lio for using PEDs and he has to clear his name)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reasonland

**Author's Note:**

> 2015
> 
> I do not own the people, places, or teams mentioned within. To my knowledge, these events, or anything resembling them, have never occurred (or, since it is set a couple months after the time I wrote it, to my knowledge, these events will not occur. It would be very strange indeed if they did, because then I would be magic.)
> 
> I’m sorry if there aren’t really police dogs in Spain. I wrote this for a class and it was more about the story than the research. Then again, a close family friend raises service dogs—labs for Guide Dogs for the Blind and K-9 units in California, USA. So I know about service dogs.
> 
> Thank you to the wonderful jjjat3am for betaing this.
> 
> Quoted lyrics are from “Reasonland” by Antje Duvekot.

_Reasonland’s emperor came down_

_To the water’s edge and said, “I don’t know where I’m bound_

_I’ve got emeralds and rubies sewn into my gown_

_But I am sadder than the diamonds on my crown.”_

 

**···**

 

On the morning of Sunday, 15 March, 2015, Lionel Messi is woken by his phone ringing shrilly on the table next to his bed. He rolls over and picks it up, nearly dropping it as he fumbles to answer.

“Hello?” he mumbles blearily, blinking at the clock. Just after six.

It’s Lucho. “Lio? Practice is canceled today.”

That wakes him right up. “What? Why?”

Lucho hesitates. “Have you… seen the news today?”

“No, not yet,” Lio answers with a sinking feeling in his stomach. What awful thing has happened overnight? He leans over and grabs his laptop, flips it open, and hits ‘news’.

The first headline doesn’t make sense. Can’t make sense. He has to read it three times before it finally sinks in that—oh god—this is a story that is actually online, being told as news.

 

** Messi accused of using PEDs **

 

“What…” he says weakly. “Holy… what? Where did this come from?”

Lucho sighs. “Lio, they found some stuff hidden behind your locker. They haven’t said what it was yet, but then this appears just a bit later… I mean, I don’t think you’d really do this, but it is pretty suspici—”

Lio ends the call with a frantic jab at his phone and slams the laptop shut. He then gets up, wanders into the living room, sits down on the couch, and begins to freak out.

By the time he starts calming down, his phone has completed at least thirty different ring cycles. He feels shaky and bewildered, but it’s sunk in that this is real, that he’s actually being investigated for drug use.

 _Oh fuck,_ he thinks, and begins to hyperventilate again.

His phone chimes, and this time he makes himself get up and grab it. It’s Neymar, sending him a text that says, _still believe in u_. A few seconds later, there’s another one that says _but don’t go out today,_ accompanied by no less than three pics of a riot happening outside Camp Nou.

The small smile that had started to appear at the first text vanishes.

People are rioting. About him. About something they think he’s done. He can’t tell from the pictures what the crowd opinion is, but he’s not sure he even wants to know.

He sets his phone aside, curls up on the couch, and tries not to think about what’s happening.

It helps that he’s still in shock.

 

**···**

 

He wishes there was a way he could avoid the press.

Some of the time, the media is okay. They’re kind of needed, even. Without the media, the fan base would definitely be a lot smaller, there would be less revenue, and maybe a club like Barça wouldn’t be able to exist. That would be awful.

Mostly, the media is just background noise. There are other times, though, when it seems like the only difference between them and vultures is that the reporters don’t poop on themselves.

The press conference is hell. As soon as he’s done giving the prepared statement saying that he’s never taken PEDs and is disappointed with these rumors, they pounce, relentless, no matter how many times he says some variation “No comment” or “I already answered that.”

“What type of drugs are we talking about here?” asks a petite female journalist with dark hair dyed blond.

“I’ve been told that Nandrolone was found. I haven’t been given any other information.”

A curly-haired man from the Associated Press stands up and asks, “Will you still be playing while you’re being investigated?”

Lio shrugs. “That’s Lucho’s call.” He tries to smile a little while saying that, and the brief chuckle that sweeps the room gives him a little relief.

Next, it’s a nondescript guy with black-rimmed glasses, asking, “If you weren’t taking anything, then how did that substance get there?”

Lio actually has to pause for that one. “I don’t know,” he admits, shaking his head slightly. It sets off a fervor of scribbling throughout the room that makes him feel uneasy. Who knows how they’re interpreting his answer.

The small blond journalist gets another question in. “Do you know of any other footballers using PEDs?” she asks, and yeah, Lio’s had media training, quite a lot of it, but this is just driving home the fact that all this is real. It’s like a living hell and it’s maybe—probably—the worst day of his life.

“What does this mean for your career?” asks a balding man in a well-tailored suit.

Lio finds a noncommittal answer for that one, and all the other questions that follow. Somehow, he manages to last the rest of the press conference, and then he makes sure it doesn’t look like he’s running as he leaves.

He walks calmly to the nearest bathroom, locks the door, kneels in front of the toilet, and throws up. Afterwards, desperately trying to not think about the accusations, he leans against the cool ceramic tiles of the wall, hugs his knees to his chest, and cries until his eyes are dry and burning.

“Beware the ides of March, Caesar,” he whispers to himself, wiping at the tears. They go easily, but leave behind undeniable signs of crying. He stands up and looks in the mirror, and wow, he looks awful. His eyes are red and puffy, his short dark hair disordered, his dress shirt damp and wrinkled. He turns away, words from the papers and the press conference echoing around in his head.

 _Beware_.

 

**···**

 

The next morning, it takes all of Lio’s remaining rational mentality to force himself to eat breakfast. He’s not hungry, and his chest feels hollow, but he knows he can’t just let his body deteriorate into a horrid state. He makes an omelet with robotic, tired motions, unable to clear his mind even for an instant of the horrible accusation hanging over his head.

The eggs taste like ash in his mouth.

The doorbell rings, raucous and jarring against the silence of the still kitchen, and Lio jumps. Relieved to find an excuse to stop eating, he hurries to the front door, opening it and finding himself face to face with Kun.

For a long moment, almost a brief infinity, he stands there staring at Kun. He can’t think of what to say, can’t do anything but just stand there.

Finally, he says, “Kun… I didn’t, I… I wouldn’t—” and Kun steps forward, pulls him into a hug, and whispers, “I know.”

 

**···**

 

Five minutes later, they’ve set up camp in Lio’s kitchen.

“Who would want to do this to you?” Kun asks, pacing back and forth, shoes squeaking quietly on the tiled floor.

“I don’t know,” Lio says, frowning at the elegant grain, slightly stain-splattered, that is his kitchen table. “It’s a scandal. People like scandals.”

“No, I mean, who would want to do this to _you_?”

“I don’t know,” Lio repeats, “I’m well known. Lots of regular, ordinary people out there don’t like me. It could be anyone—” Lio hesitates. “Actually, I take that back. It would’ve had to have been someone who had access to the locker room, to put that stuff there, so not just a regular ordinary person.”

Kun nods. “Makes sense. Doesn’t really narrow it down much, though.”

“Well, how would you narrow it down further?”

“Rivals. You’re playing Real in like, a week, right?”

Lio shakes his head. “I don’t care what the media says, but Cristiano would never do something like that. There’s no hate there.”

“I wasn’t gonna say Ronaldo. Sure, he dives, but I don’t really think many people would think of that.”

“Then who were you gonna say?”

Kun stops his pacing and flops into a chair, smiling slightly. “Well, Ramos is kind of a dickbag…”

Huh. Ramos. In a nasty way, it would make sense. But Lio doesn’t want to think that another footballer would do such a thing—even that one.

Also, there’s no evidence.

“We can’t be sure. If I just go and accuse him, it’ll bring a whole lot of negative publicity. Also, I… I dunno, it doesn’t feel right. But maybe.”

Kun grins. “No, it couldn’t be that easy. Lio, this is gonna be a good old-fashioned mystery! It’s got to be complicated! And we’ve got to be smarter than the villain!”

Lio can’t help but smile at Kun’s enthusiasm. It’s almost catching. But still… this is his career, his life they’re talking about.

 _I just hope_ , he thinks, _that it won’t get too complicated._

 

**···**

 

_A mighty king came down to the sea_

_Said, “I may win any battle that I please_

_I got a hundred-man battalion, they all fall down at my feet_

_But there’s a songbird that will not sing for me.”_

**_···_ **

Later that morning, Lio gets notice that he’s not supposed to come to practice today. This sends his heart shooting into his toes—it means Lucho doesn’t trust him anymore. Who knows how many of his teammates agree.

Kun doesn’t have anything to do, either—the rest of City’s getting there the next day, and Kun took an early flight out alone. He suggests investigating, but they can’t think of where to start, so they end up spending the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon playing FIFA in Lio’s living room.

“Hey, no matter what happens,” Kun jokes, “you’ll still have this kind of football.” Lio flinches, despite the way he tries not to, and Kun notices, slinging an arm across Lio’s shoulders and saying, “Sorry, that was insensitive. I’ll revise that. No matter what happens, I’ll still be here to support you.”

“Thanks,” Lio murmurs, and then starts laughing uncontrollably as Kun tickles the back of his pale neck. “Stop, haha, stop! Get off me, fucker!”

“Then start looking happy, little guy!”

“God, Kun, you can’t call me that, you’re not that much taller than me!”

“You’re still tiny—didn’t even crack 170, shorty!”

Lio facepalms. “You are so annoying.”

“It’s my special talent. I’m great at it.”

 

**···**

 

That evening, Kun continues his efforts to try and cheer Lio up by dragging him out of the house and to a small restaurant on the northern edge of civilization. It’s a longer drive than either of them is used to—this isn’t, like, America or something, where those crazy people think something three hours away is close—but the food is delicious and the lack of other customers soothing.

“So,” Lio asks, once they’re driving back, “where are you planning to stay tonight?”

The look on Kun’s face is priceless. “D’oh,” he says, screwing up his eyes and banging his head lightly on the dashboard. “I totally forgot.”

Lio laughs. “It’s okay,” he grins. “You can sleep in my guest room for tonight. After that, I imagine your team will have a hotel for all of you.”

“No, they just expect us to fend for ourselves,” Kun giggles, and then says, “But thanks, Lio. I guess that’s why I didn’t plan ahead—I knew you’d help.”

“Awwwww, so cute!”

“You bastard… what the hell?” Kun interrupts himself as they turn onto Lio’s street only to see the flickering lights of no fewer than five police cars in front of the house. A police officer starts toward them from the scene, and Lio, fumbling with his seatbelt, rushes to meet her.

“What’s happening, what’s going on?” he asks frantically as a sixth car arrives.

“There’s been a break-in,” the officer says. “Nothing’s been stolen, as far as we can tell, but the vandals put up a whole lot of graffiti and left behind some cheap explosives.”

Cheap explosives?! The hell?

“Explosives?” he stutters out. “In my _house_?”

“Not anymore,” the officer says, fixing him with an impressive (and probably unintentional) dead eyed stare. Her nose is crooked in three places, and her name tag reads Lt. Nieto. “We’re still checking the upper levels of the house, but we’ve cleared the first floor. There’s a whole lot of broken glass—the vandals did a good job throwing rocks.”

Lio doesn’t really hear the last part. He’s too busy trying to wrap his mind around the fact that yes, this is happening, to him. It’s the second awful shock in two days, and if things keep going like this, he’s not sure if he’ll be able to take it. He’s feeling really tired.

“I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely, turning to Kun, “it looks like my guest room won’t be available after all.”

Suddenly, a microphone is shoved in his face, and a strange voice asks, “Who do you think has done this?”

Lio whirls around, rather shocked, and sees the petite blond from the press conference. Behind her stands a nondescript guy with black-rimmed glasses.

Seeing his confusion, the blond says, “I’m Violetta Chavez, from _El País_ , and this is my colleague Antonio Parra. Who do you think is responsible for this vandalism?”

Lio is lost for words. He can’t believe someone would be so rude as to ask him that now, when he’s still digesting the news himself. Actually, he can. It’s the press, and he’s seen how they try to tear people apart and feed them to the lions without a care for tomorrow.

“No comment,” he says, and tries to ignore the notes Parra’s scribbling.

Kun must see Lio’s distress, because he grabs Lio’s elbow and asks, “What now? Where am I gonna stay tonight?” as he not-so-subtly drags Lio back toward the car. They’re both moving briskly, but somehow Chavez manages to keep pace with them. There’s a cloying cloud of perfume around her, plastic and chemical and the stink of artificial rose.

“What do you say to those calling you a cheat?” she asks, circling like a hungry hyena.

“No comment,” Lio repeats. They’re at the car, finally, and Kun slips into the driver’s seat while Lio struggles to open the passenger door while there’s a reporter hounding his heels. He finally manages it, Chavez’s final question echoing behind him.

“Do you think it’s those same people who are responsible for this vandalism?”

The car door closes sharply on the question’s ending, and the whole world goes quiet.

A single tear leaks from between Lio’s closed eyelids. “No comment,” he whispers, even though there’s no one but Kun to hear.

 

**···**

 

Neymar offers them use of the guest rooms in his house that night. It’s obvious he hadn’t thought Kun would be there, but the young Brazilian adapts quite well when it turns out an extra person (and someone who’s _not_ a teammate) will be arriving.

That changes the next morning, when the three of them (and Neymar’s son Davi) are having breakfast amidst an uneasy peace. It doesn’t seem to bode well for the day when Lio has to spend breakfast trying to break the hostile silence between his best friend and his teammate.

That premonition becomes a reality when two police officers arrive and ask to speak to Lio. He recognizes one of them, Lt. Nieto, from last night—the thrice-broken nose and impressive dead eyes are easy to remember. The other officer is a dog handler, a short yet well-muscled man with a German Shepherd sitting patiently by his side. They want to talk to Lio.

This is where it becomes rather inconvenient that he’s at Neymar’s house. Kun has already made himself scarce, presumably to meet up with his team when they arrive, and Neymar grudgingly offers the use of the living room for the purposes of this conversation and then disappears upstairs, leaving Lio alone with the police.

His friends are all deserters.

The dog handler introduces himself as Felipe Garcia, his colleague the human as Maria Nieto, and his colleague the dog as Carla.

“Don’t worry,” Garcia says after introducing Carla. “She’s a sniffer, not an attack dog. I mean, she’ll bite if she has to, but she’s trained for detection.”

That doesn’t really make Lio feel any better. A drug-sniffing dog when he’s being accused of using drugs? What a coincidence. Do drug-sniffing dogs know what steroids smell like? Hey, maybe the dog’ll know then that he hasn’t used anything. Carla does seem fairly calm, if a little bored.

Neymar’s puppy Poker chooses this moment to come scrambling down the stairs and barrel into the police dog, and the frantic puppy wrangling that ensues does help break the ice a little. There’s just something about wiping dog slobber off your face that makes it impossible to stay nervous.

“Okay,” he says once Poker is no longer trying to hump the table leg and has been removed to the upstairs. “What did you want to know?”

Garcia starts it off. “Have you noticed anything suspicious around your house in the past few weeks?”

“N… not that I can think of, no, nothing that stands out.”

Nieto leans forward. The dead eyes are still there, but her voice is considerate in a way that doesn’t match the eyes. Huh. Maybe the eyes are just a resting condition, unchangeable, consistently indifferent. Hearing a patient, kind voice while watching those emotionless eyes is rather bizarre—kind of creepy, even.

Wait—they’re looking at him expectantly. “I’m sorry, what?” he says.

“Do you know what mandy or molly is?”

“Huh? Is that a person? A couple people?”

The police share a glance, obviously amused by his answer. “No, not a person. Mandy and molly are streets name for MDMA.”

Lio’s not sure what to say, except that he’s not sure what that is, either. The police respond with that glance again, like they’re saying ‘Can you believe this guy’s ignorance?’

“It’s a party drug,” Garcia says.

“Oh. But why is that important now?”

That question goes unanswered as Nieto changes the subject. “Do you know anyone by the name of Violetta Chavez?”

Holy sh*t, that’s the journalist. “Yeah,” Lio says, “she was the reporter that was asking questions last night. I think she interrupted.” He pauses to think back. “You know, she was at the press conference too. But I can’t say I’ve seen her before that. Why do you ask?”

The two police do another strange glance thing, only this time it’s more like a question than laughing at his ignorance. Then Garcia pulls out a photo of a plastic bag with a few colorful pills inside.

“What’s that?” Lio asks, even though he’s pretty sure he can figure it out.

“MDMA,” Nieto says, “found in your house with her prints on it.”

“How’d that happen?!” Lio exclaims, bewildered. He didn’t even know what this stuff was half an hour ago, and now they’re saying it was in his house? He feels violated.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Garcia says, just as calm as the beginning. Next to him, Carla lets out a quiet whine, and Lio finds himself thinking, _I agree with the dog_.

It almost makes him laugh.

 

**···**

 

That night, Lio’s house still isn’t ready to spend a night in, with holes in ninety percent of the windows, sheets of plastic covering much of the downstairs, and the stairs reduced to a pile of splinters. Neymar’s offered the use of a guest room again, much more enthusiastic about it now that Kun’s not there, but Lio’s curiosity gets the better of them and he decides to take a look inside his former abode.

There’s something about the flapping sheets of plastic and shattered lightbulbs that make Lio shiver, unnerved. This place that had once been so familiar, home, is now a creepy half-ruin. He can’t imagine even trying to spend a night here now. Who knows what might be lingering…

Shaking off the disturbing images brought to his mind by that thought, he heads back outside, letting the cool night air soothe his fears.

There’s a lump by the edge of the sidewalk.

At first, Lio’s brain doesn’t take any notice of it, but then he realizes that there’s something strange about it. This is a nice neighborhood, and you usually don’t see junk lying out in the sidewalk like that. He can’t tell what it is in the darkness, but something’s there that shouldn’t be.

Curious, he walks closer…

Vacant, empty eyes stare at him out of the still face of Police Dog Handler Felipe Garcia. The left side of his face is brutally caved in, crushed, and his chest…

Lio takes one look, turns away, scrambles for the bushes, and loses his dinner. Then he drags out his phone and is about to call the police when a faint whimper from further in the bushes catches his attention.

 _The dog_ , he remembers. _The police officer—Garcia—was a dog handler._ Sure enough, when he wades through the bushes, he finds Carla the German Shepherd tied to the base of the fence on the other side of the bushes, a cruel-looking spiked choke collar keeping her from moving. When he kneels down, he catches a whiff of a memorable scent—artificial rose drifting off the poor dog’s fur in a chemical breeze.

He swallows and finishes dialing 112. The call is answered immediately, and he has to swallow again to be able to speak.

“Hello, I’ve got a dead body to report…”

 

**···**

 

_Ring, ring, ring, ring._

_“Hello, you’ve reached Kun Agüero. I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now, but please leave a message!”_

_“Kun. It’s me, Lio. Kun, I’ve got an idea. Look up Violetta Chavez. She’s the journalist that was bugging us last night. I think it might be her. No, I’m almost sure of it. The police found her fingerprints on… something… that was left in my house.”_

_“A police officer died tonight. A dog handler. You remember Chavez’s perfume? It was on the fur of the dog. And, you know, it makes sense. All journalists like a good story. She’s a journalist, so she’s no exception—must love a good story too. And this whole thing is one good story.”_

_“I, I thought this whole thing was only gonna affect me, but… but now someone’s dead because of it. It was—it was awful. And what if something like this… what if the killer, whoever it is, Chavez or not—what if they kill again?”_

_“I just, I don’t want… I don’t really know what’s gonna happen next, Kun. I don’t want a mystery! I don’t want suspense or clues or a dark and stormy night… I want my life back.”_

_Muffled sob._

_“Sorry.”_

_“Okay, bye, Kun. Don’t get hurt or anything, See you later.”_

_Dail tone._

 

**···**

 

_Ring, ring, ring, ring._

_“Hello, this is Lionel Messi’s phone. He can’t answer right now, so please leave a message after the tone.”_

_“Lio? It’s Kun. I’ve got some stuff about Chavez. Like you asked. Although why you couldn’t just look her up yourself I don’t know.”_

_“Okay. So she works for El País, but before that she was a photographer for a newspaper in, uh, London—The Independent. She’s from Sevilla. I can’t really find much else, she hasn’t left much of a personal trail online—not that I can find at least. It’s all work stuff… articles she’s written, photos she’s taken.”_

_“Although, her writing isn’t bad. Surprisingly unbiased for a reporter. Or maybe she’s just good at hiding it.”_

_“But what about you, Lio? Hanging in there okay? We’ll catch her, or whoever it is, Lio. They won’t be able to strike again.”_

_“You will get your life back, okay? Bye.”_

_Dail tone._

**···**

 

That night, the nightmares begin.

It starts the same way his usual nightmares start, in the middle of a tough game where it feels like no matter what he’s doing, nothing changes. He hates that helpless feeling like nothing else, and his nightmares love to make him suffer through it. The other team is a nondescript blur of players, no particular people in it, but they park the bus and Lio can’t help the frustration, the awful anxiety that rises up at not being able to get through them, not being able to change anything.

The “game” ends, scoreless, and here’s where the dream goes sideways. Usually at this point, the grass beneath his feet vanishes, he falls for an eon, down, down, down into a dark, wild, raging river, and a torn up tree smashes him into a rock, breaking ribs and fingers and cheekbones and mixing warm blood with the frigid current—just as terrifying and demonically painful as always. But this time, he makes it off the field and heads to the locker room, trying to keep the crippling anxiety under control until he can get out of sight.

The lights are out when he steps into the locker room, and that’s the exact moment when he realizes that his teammates aren’t there. He can’t keep himself from shivering, because he had seen them—Geri was _just_ there, right in front of him.

He reaches over, fumbling for a light switch that he usually doesn’t have to bother with, and flips it on to find a body lying face down in the center of the locker room. He shakes his head in denial and tries to walk back out the door and leave this horror behind, but some undeniable force has grabbed onto him, and he moves forward against his will.

The body doesn’t turn over easily. When he finally manages to turn it over, it’s just as badly mutilated as in real life. The eyes are open, staring blankly into space, and blood trickles slowly from the huge, pulverized cavity where the man’s chest had been.

As Lio watches, horrified and frozen, the eyes flick over to stare at him and a hand comes up to grab his wrist. Suddenly, he can move again, but the bloodless fingers are closed in a viselike grip that he can’t break free of, no matter how hard he struggles. The corpse’s lips don’t move, but the air is swiftly filled with a hissing, distorted version of what Garcia’s voice had been, repeating one question, over and over, until there’s no other sound in the room.

“Who killed me?”

Lio wakes up screaming, scrambling out of bed and stumbling to the window. The night air is cold against his sweaty skin, and he gasps in lungfuls of it, trying to cleanse his mind of the horror it had created for him. Try as he might, he can’t forget the feeling of cold, dead fingers wrapping around his wrist and lifeless eyes watching, but not caring.

 

**···**

On Wednesday, Lio watches the game against City from the stands, trying to hide how much he wants to be playing. It’s a nail biter, tough competition and a tie throughout much of the first half. Just before halftime, with two minutes of stoppage time added on, all of Camp Nou erupts as Rakitic sends a rocket of a shot screaming past Hart’s fingertips, and Barca finishes the half on a high.

However, City make a comeback fifteen minutes into the second half when Kun heads in a corner. Tie game. The tension is audible, crackling like electricity and growing as the clock ticks on. Hearts are in throats, and then it’s the eighty-seventh minute…

And Neymar has a fucking _beautiful_ run that ends in a perfect cross to Suárez, who taps it in easily.

City doesn’t have enough time to put together anything, even with four minutes added, and Barca advances to the semifinals of the Champions league.

It’s almost enough happiness to make Lio forget the way his life’s falling apart around him. It’s not enough, though, to stop the nightmares.

 

**···**

 

_The preacher’s wife knelt down before the waves_

_She said, “For your love and salvation I have prayed_

_I am a tired tightrope-dancer, I wanna go no more this way,_

_So won’t you give me something, a penny for my faith.”_

 

**···**

 

On the afternoon of Thursday, 19 March, 2015, a small, white envelope without a return address, stamp, or, really, any marking other than his name is dropped off on Lio’s porch. He doesn’t see it until he gets back from a lunch with some of his teammates, but when he picks it up, he can’t deny that something about it makes his heart drop down through his shoes.

Lio slits open the envelope and pulls out something that makes his blood run cold.

The photo is of Kun, tied to a chair, unconscious. The left side of his body’s in shadow, but Lio can easily see the abrasions and bruises on his right side. There’s a large mark that looks like a burn near the Tengwar tattoo on Kun’s right arm, and a cut on his cheek is surrounded by the rusty brown of dried blood.

The room in the photo is bare, with sawdust on the floor and the walls half constructed, fluffy cotton candy insulation poking out of dark cracks and littering the floor. Sheets of plywood rest against the back wall, a chainsaw at their base. There’s a window behind the chair, and light from the high noon sun shines tangentially through it, bouncing off the dusty glass of a building next door, illuminating the dark room. 

Below the picture, in the white border, a typed message says, _Five hours and counting. Bring €75000000_ _—I don’t care how you get it, your own money or someone else’s—to the attached address by 8:00 today and I might let your friend live. Tell anyone and he dies._

The attached address is, when googled, on a construction site in Huesca. _Fuck,_ Lio thinks, _that’s like three hours away_. Normally, he wouldn’t want to drive that far, but this could be a matter of life and death.

Then he looks at the picture again and realizes he shouldn’t bother getting any money. He’s not gonna need it.

 _Hey,_ he texts Neymar, _do you know anything about how to set up a livestream?_

 

**···**

 

The construction site is devoid of people when Lio arrives around 6:30. The empty barrenness of the whole area is unnerving, but expected. If he were trying to blackmail someone, he wouldn’t want other people around.

He swallows, turns off the car, and gets out. His hands are shaking, he notices as he tries to lock the door. Then he remembers that it doesn’t really matter if it’s locked or not. There’s no one here but him and whoever sent him that photo, and if the sender takes his car, chances are Lio’s not gonna be in any state to use it.

He wipes his palms on his pants, pulls out his phone opens the camera, starts recording, and turns the broadcast on.

 _Okay,_ he texts Neymar. _You can tweet the link out now._ He then whispers his location into the phone’s mic, and tucks it into the hip pocket of his jeans, making sure the camera can see what’s in front of him, but is hidden by his sweater.

When he walks through the open doorway into the half-built condo, he’s immediately struck by the barrenness of it all. The inside is only plain walls—construction on this floor is obviously done. He does a quick check and determines that there’s no one else on this floor but him. _No point in staying, then_ , he thinks, heading for the framework stairs.

The second floor is pretty much the same, empty walls with a few pipes and cords hanging out, where the various outlets and sinks and the like will be attached. The third floor echoes the first two, and so does the fourth.

The fifth is only partially constructed. Skeletal walls with wooden ribs form the bare structure of where the rooms are. Pink insulation lies in piles on the dusty floor, and he can see sawdust on the floor. Some pieces of equipment are lying on the floor. A ladder rests against the wall, and in the apartment at the end of the hallway, a person is silhouetted against an open window.

Slowly, cautiously, Lio moves down the hallway, making as little noise as he can. He makes it to the doorway of the room without detection and hesitates, peering in. He still can’t make out who the person is—there’s too much glare coming off the west-facing window to even tell if they’re a guy or girl.

He steels his nerves, makes sure the camera can still see, and steps through the door.

The person turns around.

“Ah, glad that you could make it, Señor Messi,” Antonio Parra says.

 

**···**

 

“You don’t look very surprised,” Parra grins, looking rather pleased with himself.

“You don’t look very remorseful,” Lio retorts. His heart’s in his throat, but he can’t let that show, can’t let on anything about what he’s thinking. He doesn’t want his fear to be mistaken as shock. “But it was easy to figure out.”

“And how did you figure it out?”

“Some clues and a series of suspicions,” Lio says tersely. He doesn’t want to show all his cards yet; he’d rather have something in reserve for later.

“Aaah, suspicions! Great for starting things, like rumors or investigations, but never enough to finish them. For that you need cold, hard facts—or at least something that looks like them. I know that, Messi. I’ve worked this job long enough to know how to get someone convicted.

“It was easy to frame you, you know. I didn’t put much work into it—the Nandrolone in the locker room thing was simple. People’s minds filled in the rest. It might not have held water in a court, but that wouldn’t matter.”

And that’s the first thing Parra’s said that doesn’t make sense to Lio. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why wouldn’t it matter?”

Parra flashes a grin. “Because I wanted a story. But not just any story, Messi. I didn’t want to just play the old star player cheats with drugs story—that one doesn't have enough substance to last for decades. No, I wanted a true tragedy, one people would remember. True tragedies are art forms, Messi. Look how we still remember the greek ones—Oedipus, Antigone, and the like. Look how people still honor Shakespeare for his plays—and what were some of them but glorified historical fan fiction? Humans love a good story, but they love a good cry-fest even more. There’s something about knowing that nothing’s gonna turn out all right that catches people and draws them in. They can’t help but love true tragedy. And in a true tragedy, the tragic hero always dies.”

“Wait, what?!”

“It’s a fatal flaw that always does it—and the greatest tragedies are the ones where the flaw is a virtue. With you the flaw would be your love for football, above everything else, even life. You would be remembered because of that love and what it drove you to do.”

“Yeah, yeah, but can we go back to the part about me  _dying_?”

Parra snorts. “I’m getting there, Messi. I’m getting there. But don’t you agree that a story about someone trying to frame a star football player and everyone he knows turning on him so fast that he kills himself and then it turns out he’s innocent after all and was framed by a certain female journalist is a lot more tragic and exciting than a simple doping scandal?”

“Kill myself?! Why would I do that?”

“And then when that journalist’s colleague writes a book about it, it’ll sell tons of copies, because people want to know about how this happened. Humans are drawn to this kind of thing. It’s in our nature.”

It’s horrible, so horrible that Lio knows the other man’s not just making this up on the spot. “So… I die, Chavez takes the fall for it, and you get rich.”

Parra scratches at something under his loose coat, and he’s gotta be overheating in that thing. “Precisely. Nice to see you’re getting the hang of how this works.”

“But why would I kill myself?” Lio asks again, still baffled by this one point.

Parra’s grin is that of the shark upon spying a helpless injured mammal struggling to stay afloat. “Because if you do not, I’ll kill your friend.”

And here it is, the final moment, the great ace in Lio’s hand. He takes a deep breath and then lays down his cards.

“Kun’s not here.”

Parra barks out a laugh. “So sure, are you?”

Lio fixes him with a cold stare. “Yes, I’m sure. You never had him. He wasn’t in danger. You did a good job with that picture, but it was photoshopped. The shadows were all wrong—the window was the only light source in the room, but the left side of the chair was in shadow while the right side was not. Someone who had once been a skilled photographer, like Chavez, wouldn’t have made that mistake. That’s actually how I knew it wasn’t her. But you obviously wanted people to think it was, or else you never would’ve put her perfume in the dog’s fur, and you wouldn’t have put her fingerprints on that bag of molly and left it in my house.

“Good job on the wounds in that picture, though. They looked pretty realistic.”

Parra’s face has long since lost its trace of reason, but now the light in his eyes becomes manic, animalistic, beastly. “It doesn’t matter,” he spits out, “it doesn’t matter what you do, it doesn’t matter what you know. If you aren’t gonna kill yourself, then I’ll just kill you and make it look like you did.” The man yanks a handgun out from under his bulky coat—oh god that’s why he was scratching—and Lio throws himself backwards, out the door, as Parra aims and fires.

The first shot misses.

The second one does not.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit this whole expedition was a bad idea, this was the worst idea he’s ever had. His legs give out and he slumps against the wall. He can feel the broken ribs, the holes where his lung’s been poked through.  He gasps in a heaving breath, pressing his hand against his side where the bullet entered. It comes away dark red, sticky with blood.

Parra walks up to him, kneels down and reaches for his hand, tries to wrap it around the gun’s handle, but Lio pulls back as fast as he can. Even in this state, he’s still got some strength.

“Smile,” he chokes out, struggling to pull enough air in to speak. “You’re on camera.” He shifts his sweater enough to reveal the way his phone’s camera is poking out of his jeans.

Parra’s face contorts, but the man forces it into a smile, a bare-toothed grimace. “No matter,” he growls, “I’ll kill you and destroy the footage.”

“N—agh,” Lio gasps out, halted by the pain, and then, “no, you can’t stop… livestream.”

Parra goes icy cold so swiftly it’s terrifying, or would be, if Lio could focus on that. “Bitch,” he whispers. “You fucking bastard.”

And there, outside, is the noise Lio’s been waiting for: the shrill, strident wailing of a police siren, screeching to a halt in front of the building, and the boom of a car door slamming shut.

Parra snarls and sends a shot through Lio’s shoulder. Lio can’t help the scream he lets out, loud and agonized, but he doesn’t want to stop it—anything to clue the police in on his location.

“I guess I’ll just end this right here,” Parra hisses. “If I can’t have the story, then why should I try to hide anything?” He raises the gun again, pressing the muzzle against Lio’s forehead. “Say goodbye to everything you knew—”

“You were wrong,” Lio forces out. _Stall,_ he thinks desperately, _just waste some time._

Parra draws back slightly. “What did you say?”

“You were wrong.”

“How so?”

“This… isn’t a tragedy. It’s, unh, it’s a mystery.”

Parra looks disgusted. “ _That’s_ what you’re going to die with?!” In his contempt, he’s moved the gun, but Lio doesn’t have any strength to take advantage of it.

In that instant, Lio becomes aware of a strange panting sound.

Then a furry body slams into Parra, knocking the man sideways. He screams and tries to fire, once, twice, but both shots miss the mottled sleek German Shepherd that’s got its teeth buried in the journalist’s arm.

 _Thank you, Carla,_ Lio thinks, blinking as he tries to stay awake. It’s hard—the blackness is calling his name. After the pain, unconsciousness is a blessing, and he takes it.

Footsteps pound up the stairs and toward them, and somehow Parra manages to tear free of the snapping teeth. His gun’s still lying on the floor, and he’s left staring at the muzzle of a police officer’s gun. Lt. Nieto, her badge says.

“Antonio Parra,” she pants, “you are under arrest for murder, falsification of evidence, extortion,” and here she glances down at where Lio is slumped, “attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful possession of a firearm—”

“Fucking police,” Parra mutters with an exasperated shake of his head, interrupting her, and he whirls and runs for the empty window behind him. The police dog darts after him, lunging at his ankles and missing by a hair.

“Carla, heel!” Lt. Nieto yells, and Carla skids to a halt.

Parra doesn’t stop; he only laughs. “I will not die a captive man!” he yells, leaping, up, up and on, springing into open air and reaching for the drainpipe of the building next door—and missing—and falling down—down—a million downward miles to fall, and land upon the cold cement below, broken, crushed, and lifeless—but free.

 

**···**

_I wanna fly into your center_

_I wanna sink into your gold_

_I wanna go down without my dagger_

_I wanna shed these clothes…_

 

 

**···**

 

On the morning of Sunday, 22 March, Lionel Messi is woken by the steady, soft beeping of a heart monitor. It’s soothing, rhythmic, and for a few moments, he lies still listening to its simple sound.

When he opens his eyes, he finds the sterile, white ceiling of a hospital bedroom. One wall of the room has large windows from floor to ceiling, showcasing a large, budding tree in the parking lot outside. Two chairs sit in the corner, and Kun is leaning against the wall in one of them, fast asleep.

It is at about this moment that the pain makes itself known—and what pain it is. Lio’s whole left side aches, and it feels like his ribs have been replaced with barbed wire and his shoulder is being stabbed with white-hot poker. He can barely keep from crying out. The wave of pain subsides a few seconds later, though, and he finds that if he keeps still and only takes shallow breaths, it doesn’t hurt too bad.

Neymar’s head pokes around the door frame, and his eyes widen as he sees Lio awake.

“Hey, he’s up!” the Brazilian whispers out into the hall, and a few seconds later a whole brace of his teammates squeeze into the room.

“Hey,” Lio croaks. His voice feels rusty, disused, and grates on his own ears. “What day is it?”

“The 22nd,” Geri answers. “You’ve been out for over two days.”

“Oh… is the— did Parra get away?”

Neymar shakes his head. “No, he jumped out a window and died rather than be caught.”

Just then, the significance of the date surfaces in his brain. “Wait, the 22nd…” he says slowly, “…the game today!” He struggles to push himself up, but the sharp flashes of agony shooting from his shoulder and side are too much and he collapses back onto the bed. It’s all he can do not to scream, and as it is, tears squeeze from between his tightly closed eyelids.

“Easy, hey,” Xavi says, “the game’s been moved.”

“Why?” Lio rasps. It can’t be because of him. A whole game wouldn’t just be moved because one player got hurt.

“You weren’t _just_ hurt,” Ivan says, and Lio realizes that he’d spoken the last part of his thought.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” says Neymar, “when you were brought in, they didn’t know if you were going to make it. I mean, it was touch-and-go—the whole first night there was, like, a whole team of doctors working nonstop to try and keep you alive. They say if you hadn’t been in such good shape you’d be a goner.”

“So people kinda decided it would be crass to have a game when no one knew if you were going to die or not. And, well, no one did know, really, until we got the news last night that you’d stabilized.”

“Oh,” Lio says. Then he tries to smile. “How did you guys like my filmmaking?”

“Bloody,” Geri smirks. “Could’ve been a Tarantino movie.”

Everyone laughs, and then a serious aura falls.

“It was stupid, it was foolish, and it was dangerous,” says Masche. “I want you to promise all of us that you will never do such a thing again.”

Lio grins. “What about next—” He breaks off, gasping at the pain in his ribs from a too-deep breath. “Actually, you know what, no. No next time. I won’t do that again. I promise.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Xavi says.

Another round of laughter and smiles sweeps the room. There actually is quite a lot of relief in the air—Lio can feel how grateful his teammates are that he’s alive and talking.

“What about Kun?”

“Huh?”

“I thought he’d already left.”

“Oh no,” Neymar says, straight-faced, “he jumped off a plane.”

“What?!”

“It was moving at the time.”

_“WHAT?!!!”_

“But it was still on the ground.”

“Oh,” Lio says. “That’s a little better, I guess.”

Just then, a nurse comes in, a young man who shoos Lio’s teammates out with brisk hand motions and a sharp voice. He does a brief check of the monitors, writes something down, and leaves. A few minutes later, something cool begins to seep through the IV in Lio’s arm. It sends him drifting away, out over the blissfully empty white plains of blank unconsciousness.

When he fades back in, he’s still feeling numb, and he suspects he’s on some good painkillers. The white ceiling is swirling slightly, and when he turns is head, he becomes mesmerized by the rustling green leaves on the tree outside.

“You’re alive!”

The voice that cuts through Lio’s fuzziness sounds drowsy yet full of relief, as if stress had caused days of sleep deprivation. It’s a voice Lio recognizes instantly, one that he knows as well as his own, one that he’s missed over long seasons of not seeing each other often enough.

The room is respectfully quiet (although the heart monitor keeps going) as Kun walks over to stand beside the bed.

“You look awful,” Lio says. And Kun does, huge shadows under his eyes lending credence to the tale of his staying there at Lio’s side for two days and nights.

“Pot calling the kettle black,” Kun responds, smiling from ear to ear.

Lio frowns playfully. “Do I really look _that_ bad?”

“Yes.”

“Gee, thanks, Kun.”

“No problem, shorty.”

Lio tries to flip Kun off. He is not successful—the IV keeps him from doing that gesture. He must still have those good drugs in his veins, though. There aren’t any flashes of sudden pain.

“So,” he says, “I’ve been told you jumped out of a plane for me.”

Kun at least has the decency to look sheepish. “Well,” he mutters, “it was still on the ground… and it wasn’t moving much…”

“Idiot,” Lio sighs. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to jump out of moving planes?”

“Hey, I’m not the one who decided to confront a dangerous, probably insane journalist-turned-criminal armed with only a camera. Compared to your stunt, I’m practically a safety role model.”

The idea of Kun as a role model for anything is enough to make Lio laugh. Hard. And even the good drugs aren’t quite good enough for that.

Once the painkillers are flowing again and Lio’s back to taking soft, shallow breaths to keep his ribs from hurting, he looks over at Kun and says, “You know what? That whole jumping off a plane thing?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m kinda glad you did.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Because it means you’re here.”

Kun shakes his head. “Okay, I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”

“Mean it, Kun… mean it…”

“Do you even know what drugs you’re on right now?”

Lio yawns. He doesn’t get why it’s becoming increasingly harder to keep his eyes open. It’s annoying. There’s so much he wants to say, and Kun’s not taking him seriously.

“Glad… you’re…” he starts, but the strong painkillers steal the last word from the tip of his tongue. It’s enough of a slight to make him try to fight it, to stay awake and tell Kun everything, but the manmade chemicals are already weighing anchor, bound for the high seas of sleep and taking him with them.

Lio lies in the hospital bed and dreams of nothing, and Kun stays by his side.

 

**···**

_So won’t you lay me down on a fiddler’s cloud_

_And float me out to sea…_

_Let my aching head be still, let me surrender to your will,_

_Float me out and deliver me._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/con crit/wild incoherent ravings accepted and encouraged. I'm on tumblr at [mirthandmoney](http://mirthandmoney.tumblr.com) if you want to come talk/hang out/bombard me with headcanons/fic ideas/pictures of shirtless footballers.


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